Death Wish
by SGJunkie
Summary: Before memories are erased Ianto is still a killer, and he wants revenge. slightly jack/ianto at the end.


Title: Death Wish

Author: SGJunkie

Rating: PG-15 (mostly for dark themes)

Summary: Before memories are erased Ianto is still a killer, and he wants revenge.

Disclaimer: No money is being made from this story; it's all just for fun.

Warnings: Dark themes, Torture (nothing particularly graphic)

Ianto Jones stood on the upper landing of the hub and looked down on his colleagues below. Tosh was still sobbing her heart out on the sofa behind her desk, Gwen trying in vain to comfort her. Owen looked lost stood in the autopsy bay with no actual work to do. They were all different, changed but none more than him. He remembered Tosh sitting at her desk hiding in plain sight, something he too had become very adept at. Every now and then she would sneak glances at Owen – although what she saw in him was beyond Ianto – who would be playing video games at his computer, pretending to work whenever he thought Jack was looking.

Surveying the people before him now he could see the changes, the gaps in their personalities. Now he knew the cause the cracks were easy to see and a lot harder to overlook. He wondered now if he seemed different to them, did they see the darkness in his heart that had drove him to kill? More importantly could they tell the difference between the man that made them all coffee and the monster that he had become?

Ianto watched as Jack finally emerged from the cells looking worse than any of them bar Toshiko. Straightening his cuffs that were already as perfect as they could be Ianto pushed away from the railing and made his way silently down the tunnels from which Jack had just emerged.

The damp walls and lingering darkness was as familiar as ever, the corridors lit by bulbs that hung naked from the wires that ran up and down the length of the ceiling. He flexed his hands in anticipation of what was to come and shuddered as the ghost image of an imaginary girl crept across his vision. He knew that his memory was false now but the shadows that followed him just outside his field of vision were making it difficult to hold onto that knowledge. The certainty that he was innocent was fading fast and leaving a killer in its wake. This was a good thing he supposed. He was going to see Adam.

The lights came on automatically when he entered the cell block and Ianto heard Adam as he threw himself against the Perspex wall of his prison, desperate to see who had entered the room. Ianto stayed close to the door – silent – letting him wonder.

"Jack?" He shouted, face pressed to the air holes on the door. "I knew you couldn't leave me here Jack." Quieter now, uncertain.

A pause and Ianto still didn't move, didn't want to now he was here. He'd never considered himself particularly violent, which was ironic considering his employers but he'd never wanted to kill anyone until Adam changed him.

"Toshiko?" Adam was still pressed up against the cell door fishing for answers, his voice was beginning to sound desperate.

"Toshiko?" He asked again and it jarred Ianto out of his immobility because Tosh deserved this least of all. Ianto stepped into the light.

"It's not her." His voice was carefully neutral.

"Ianto mate." Adam actually sounded relieved and there was a part of Ianto that wanted to smile, he hid it inside the blank mask he had perfected over the years. "I don't know what's got into Jack. Let me out yeah? I've helped you out of tighter spots before."

Ianto took a step towards him and Adam actually smiled, he thought he'd found a way out.

"I remember..." Ianto whispered and Adams smile turned into a grin. "...but a memory doesn't make anything real. They can be blurred, distorted, erased or created. That's how it works right?"

Adams face fell and he took a step back from the Perspex sheet containing him, he stood in the centre of his cell. His eyes were closed tight and the tension showed in his fists that were balled up tight at his sides.

"I just wanted to live. Can't you understand that?" He said eventually.

"Yes" This reply seemed to startle Adam enough that his eyes were now open and fixed on the other man. "Better than most I would imagine, but you weren't content with living. You exist to change people, to bend them to your will. You've got the power of a God and we're all just toys to be played with. It doesn't matter who you hurt in the process, because a broken toy can be replaced."

Adam surged forwards then, the sorrowful expression quickly morphing into a rage that contorted his face and would make even the most beautiful man hideous in its wake.

"What were you doing with your lives before me?" He snarled. "You with your coffee and your pain, hiding it all behind those perfect suits. I gave you an outlet for that pain.

Ianto moved forwards and stood close enough to Adam now that he could have reached out and touched, not an arm's length apart.

"Yes and you made me a killer Adam, now deal with the consequences." Ianto finally allowed a smile to grace his lips, it didn't reach his eyes.

It had been fifteen minutes since she heard Jack emerge from the cells and Toshiko was finally starting to see sense. Jack had retreated to his office and she wasn't sure where Owen had disappeared to but Gwen was glad it was just the two of them in the immediate area. She knew Tosh wouldn't have liked breaking down in front of the others.

"How about I make you a nice cup of tea?" She finally suggested.

Toshiko looked up at her through eyes that were red and still managed to convey her thoughts on the matter.

"Okay so I'll get Ianto to make it but it's the thought that counts right?" The small smile that appeared on Tosh's face was heartening to see, so she called Ianto's name only to be met by silence. She tried the comm's and Jack came out of his office.

"I can't get a hold of him." She told Jack quickly noticing the sudden fear on the older man's face.

Jack typed frantically at the nearest computer, swearing under his breath before taking off at a run. Gwen went over to the screen and turned off the CCTV before Tosh could see it.

"_Yes and you made me a killer Adam, now deal with the consequences." Ianto finally allowed a smile to grace his lips, it didn't reach his eyes. _

Adam actually had the guts to laugh at him.

"You can't hurt me Ianto. Can't touch me."

"No." The calm nothingness had returned to Ianto's face. He knew that very well but he'd always know he was that little bit different, never let it be said that Yvonne Hartman didn't employ the best of the best even if she did put him to work in the archives. Ever since he was a child he'd been able the learn things the quickest, remember details every other kid simply didn't see. All he really needed to do was to convince his brain that whatever he thought of, whatever scenario he could dream up was real. If it was real then Adam would remember it too.

Adam faltered in his mocking laughter. "I can't touch you, but turnabout is fair play, if my memories make you real then remember this." The venom with which it was said and the irony in the statement was not lost on either of them as Adam began to scream.

_Darkness...blood...death. Metal glinting in the night, spilling red as it pierced flesh. The smell of that flesh burning, choking acrid smoke that filled your lungs until you dare not breathe. Darkness...blood...death. Ianto stood over Adam in the wreckage of canary wharf a fitting stage for what he was about to do. The knife was sharp and unforgiving in his hand, he knelt by his last victim._

'_Don't'_

'_This is what I've become'_

_He slams the knife home between Adams ribs and feels the satisfaction at the scream he tears from the man's lips._

_He didn't used to be like this. It doesn't matter now._

_He removes the blade and Adam screams again but you can't kill a memory and it isn't enough._

_He's never had a thirst for blood. He isn't that person anymore._

_He lays into the bleeding man with fists and feet, sweating from the exertion he can feel control slipping away from him. He wants to smash Adams head against the concrete before this fabricated reality deserts him but he's too weak now and he collapses on his victim, sobbing for the soul he's lost._

That's how Jack finds him when he bursts through the door, curled up on the dirty floor crying silently to himself. Adam is still in his cell, on his knee's now cradling what looks like a knife wound to the chest. The bastard is smiling as blood runs down his chin.

"What have you done?" Jack demands trying to coax Ianto out of the ball he's rolled himself into.

"He did this to himself" Adam leans towards them as Ianto clings to the front of Jack's shirt. He presses his bloodied hand to the clear surface of the cell door. "He's always had a killer in him I just brought it out."

"No. Ianto wouldn't do this he's..."

"Not like us?" Adam finishes with a grin. "He's still broken though."

Jack finally gets a decent hold on the distraught man who gives no indication he can even hear them. He picks Ianto up not bothering to look back at Adam, because he will fix this; fix Ianto.

The trip back up to the hub takes longer than he expected, thankfully Ianto has stopped sobbing now but he's barely conscious. Gwen and Tosh both look distraught when he carries Ianto past them but one look from him and he knows they won't follow him.

Ianto is covered in dirt and filth from floors of the cells so when Jack gets him down to his room the suit is the first thing to go. He wraps a thick blanket around the younger mans shoulders as he shivers. It's only when Jack goes to climb back up the ladder that Ianto sits bolt upright and practically screams at him not the leave.

He spends the next hour wrapped around Ianto like a human security blanket while he screams and cries because Adam took the amazing, beautiful, honourable man that Ianto is and tore him to pieces. For that he's going to wipe memories of Adam out of existence, he wants his team back. He wants Ianto back.

When Ianto finally falls asleep in his arms he presses a kiss to Ianto's head and lets the tears finally fall. In a few hours he'll have to be strong; for all of them, but for now he's human too.


End file.
